Keepsakes
by SuperMint
Summary: We all have little things that are strange to keep hold of, even sisters seperated over time.


Spring meant cleaning, a cellar to turret inspection for the whole castle. A long winter of little staff presence and few guests meant there would be dust reindeer, let alone dust bunnies, in some rooms. The rest of the staff had returned from their winter holidays, trade was starting and guests would be expected soon.

"So we have planned out the clean up to first cover the unused floors and areas then move on to the occupied rooms at your discretion." Kai explained to Elsa in her study.

"Excellent, have any other arrangements have been made?" The list on the desk before Elsa was seemingly complete but she knew from looking over past itineraries that there would be more tasks to add.

"The Ratter will be along tomorrow with his ferrets." Kai added, having looked at the list also. "Oh, and Gerda had a rather clever idea my lady. To utilise you powers and finish a job quickly."

"My powers? I already keep the ice room cold, is there some other task that needs ice?"

"Not ice, but a stiff breeze." Kai gestured to the windows. "We need to air out the guest rooms, the whole floor really and while opening the windows works it takes a long time."

"So one wintery gust from my magic and it is all done?" Elsa wiggled her fingers and regarded them a moment, she didn't see the proud look from Kai, amazed that the Queen had allowed herself to become playful after a lifetime of forced maturity.

"That was her idea," Kai supplied, "if you have the time to do so."

"It should be fine." Elsa smiled, "As for our private rooms, I will discuss with Anna what she would like to do."

"Very good my lady." Kai bowed and took his leave with the orders to be given.

Elsa brought the planned clean-up to Anna at lunch. "Oh yeah, like they do every year." She said around a forkful of chocolate drizzled krumkake. "I can sort of do my room, yeah,"

"In that case, once you finish could you let the staff know? They can visit to clean up." Elsa chuckled at the dirty look Anna shot over. "What? Your version of tidy resides in the annals of infamy."

"I like my room to look lived in." Anna replied haughtily, only spoiled a little by the crumbs on her chin.

"Okay Anna, but at least permit Kirsten or Gerda to visit before I come in to air it out, I don't want to send anything flying." Elsa tucked in to her own chocolate drowned treat, feigning dignity when Anna smirked at the sight. They passed the meal in light conversation on plans for the day after their personal spring cleaning and Elsa's work.

After breakfast Elsa and Anna parted ways, the princess to her room to tidy, the Queen to her study to work. Niether knew exactly where Olaf had got to, but seeing as he spent a great deal of time with Sven and Kristoff was out harvesting, they trusted the snowman was safe.

Business was boring. Elsa decided, dropping yet another letter of polite greeting from some kingdom who wanted to contract exclusivity with Arendelle's ice trade, never mind the established and reliable current contracted shipping venture and trade partners. It was all getting in the way of her true interest and ambition for the kingdom. Deciding it was high time for a break, Elsa left her study to wander to her room and give it a once over.

On the residential floor of the palace it was mostly quiet. The hustle and bustle of aides going about regular business and maids cleaning up was confined to other areas for now. It was on the way to her room when a shout sounded out.

"Oh no no! No!" There was a crash and a slight scream. It was Anna, it was coming from Anna's room.

"Anna!" Elsa shouted and ran the short distance between their rooms and flung open the door, terrified of what she might find. She was relieved that Anna looked mostly unhurt, even if she seemed to be crying. "Anna?" Elsa spoke softly and approached her sister sat on the floor near a tall bookcase.

"Elsa?" Anna sniffed and rubbed her eyes free of tears a moment. "Sorry, did I bother you?"

"I heard a crash and a scream." Elsa looked down at a pile of splintered wood and various objects that Anna was kneeling over. "Did something get broken?"

"Uh huh." Anna sniffled again, for a moment she wasn't an eighteen year old princess but a five year old little sister who was hurting. Elsa dropped to her knees and, checking for permission, placed her arms around Anna.

"You never have to ask if I want a hug." Anna sounded a little more cheerful, leaning on her sister's shoulder. "I want them more often than Olaf even."

"I'll remember that." Elsa said, keeping her voice soft. "Are you okay? You seem very upset over dropping something."

"It's my special box." Anna poked the splintered wood; Elsa could make out a carved design on the lacquered wood. "Well, was." She picked up some of the fragments, separated the scrap wood from the valued contents. Elsa watched, curious as to what Anna would store so carefully. So far as she knew, Anna had spent more of her time outside the palace in the castle grounds than in her room squirreling items away.

It was an odd mix of items. Some yellowing paper pages mercifully spared from being torn, a bar of partially used soap, a mostly empty perfume bottle which Anna carefully checked for damage, what looked like a hat made from grey fabric and-

"My glove!?" Elsa startled her sister with her exclamation. For a moment Anna was about to scold her but changed tack when she noticed Elsa was clearly distressed, clasping her fingers together.

"These are all special things." Anna said simply, taking up the sheets of paper to show Elsa. Scribbled drawings were upon them sketchy human figures and a snowman underneath meticulously drawn out snowflakes, two little girls on a toboggan running through a haphazardly drawn landscape. "These are the last pictures we drew together." Anna smiled softly. "Your parts were always neater."

"We'd take it in turns," Elsa said, a hint of the faraway in her voice. "I go to draw the people in one if you could in the other."

"As soon as they started to, to move everything from the room I took the pictures and hid them." Anna's eyes were watery again. "I found the box in an unused room when I went exploring and got Kai to bring it here. I started to hide special things- my most special thing had already been taken away." She looped her arms around Elsa's waist. "That's you by the way, if you didn't get it."

"I got it." Elsa tried to choke back her tears, if only because she had done plenty enough crying. "What about these others?" She pointed to the odd array pulled from the splinters.

Anna took up one, reverently. "Papa's shaving soap… it took it from his washroom when news came back." She lifted it closer and the scent of the bar became noticeable. A scent Elsa hadn't come across in over three years.

"It's Papa, how he always smelt of the soap and pipe tobacco." Elsa let the memories in this time, the hours spent in her father's company learning to run a kingdom, moments when she still let her parents embrace her, the sensation of his moustache tickling her cheek when she still let him close enough to give her a goodnight kiss.

"Yeah, I had to keep it, and this." The half empty bottle, now in context, glinted in Elsa's mind's eye. Sat high up on their mother's dresser where mischievous princesses couldn't reach it to play at grown-up, the delicate floral scent imported from Helios where their Mama grew up and refreshed every year on her birthday.

"Before the ice got very bad, when I was still small, I had nightmares… Every time I would wake up and smell her perfume on the pillow." Elsa said in a hushed voice, "I wouldn't let her near when I was awake but she would come and chase the bad dreams away as I slept."

"I was tall enough to reach it and no one was there to scold." Anna said, "I put a little on before your coronation. And made a wish." She smiled at Elsa, reminding her sister of the times as small children that their mother let them have a little scent, a dab on their wrists as they made a wish.

"Because it was a gift from the flower fairies so there was still a little magic." The sisters spoke together.

"I got my wish." Anna leaned against Elsa.

"But why keep my glove?" Elsa looked at the teal cloth on the floor, the moment it had been snatched off still burned into her memory, the events it sparked still haunted her late at night. She was loathe to touch it now, its pair discarded somewhere atop a mountain and their fellows stuffed away in an attic.

"I don't know really," Anna shrugged, "At first it was just under my bed where I had left it after all the excitement. I rescued it from a corner of the courtyard when I dropped it getting ready to chase you." Anna picked up the glove and smoothed the soft fabric. "Then when I came across it again all I could link with it was the first time we had touched in so long. So of course it was special. Now? Now I'm not so sure."

"It was a catalyst and now a symbol of change." Elsa reached out to barely touch the glove, steeling herself against freezing anything. "You think so much of it, so highly of me, that you don't want to throw it away." The fabric was still its old familiar self though it was a nice change to feel it from the outside without the accompanying fear and desire to hurriedly to pull it on over her hand.

"Probably." Anna placed it with the drawings and picked up the hat lastly. It was a simple grey thing of wool and had the slightest whiff of reindeer. Her expression was one Elsa actually knew how to read.

"Does Kristoff know you have his hat?" she teased lightly.

"He did give it to me." Anna replied, hugging it close like a treasured soft toy. "He probably knows I have it in a round-about way."

"Why did he give it to you?" Elsa knew the Ice Master from before his title and position was very careful of his possessions, they had spoken at length over what he had lost and anything he would need after Anna's initial gesture of the new sled.

"When I was cold." Anna cocked her head, leaving the details left unspoken. "They put it on a window ledge once I was inside the palace and I was too addled to really think properly but when I remembered it I went right back to get it. It was the same day I collected the glove too."

"I see." Elsa looked at the sad pile of broken wood. "Do you want to go and find a new box?" She shuffled the fragments into a neater pile and made a mental note to have someone clean up, Anna would certainly get a splinter in her foot if she didn't get plenty attempting to clear the mess herself. "We probably have a lot of boxes. Maybe even one for me."

Anna beamed. "Great idea!" She jumped up and pulled Elsa with her. As she paused to gather her precious items to put them in a place of safety an idea occurred. "Elsa?"

"Yes Anna?"

"Could we maybe go and get some boxes made, you know, instead of finding some old ones. We can make them match or not, or be similar-"

"Of course we can Anna." Elsa took her sister's hand and they left the room together to visit the carpenter in the town. Anna chattered animatedly about possible designs and features, regularly distracted in sharing hellos with the populace or halting to admire something.

For a moment Elsa let her mind wander to a dark corner of a cupboard in her room and a pillowcase that held a tiny pair of gloves, some colourful pictures signed 'Anna' in childish script, a hairpin she found on the pillow next to her head one morning when she woke well rested and a tobacco tin that had fallen from her father's pocket one visit to her room. A special box would suit much better for storing those keepsakes. She'd be able to share with Anna when they stored them away.

* * *

Well, I have the blue-ray of Frozen now, but I have to wait to watch it. Sigh. Have a one-shot of sisterly feels to fill it in. One fun thing about my sister moving out was helping her unpack all the keepsakes in her new home.


End file.
